The three local female researchers who were kidnapped with Australia-based New Zealand professor Bryce Barker are being kept in a safe house and banned from speaking to news media.

According to their families, the women were being kept in an undisclosed location for their safety with their mobile phones taken away from them by authorities.

The family also told The National that they had also been restricted from talking to the media as well.

The female researchers were doing field work with Professor Barker researching the history of human migration to Australia in a remote part of Mt Bosavi, Southern Highlands, when they were kidnapped on February 19 and held hostage for seven days.

Their captors were reported to have sought a K3.5 million (NZ$1.6 million) ransom.

One of the women was released on Thursday while the other two were released with Professor Bryce on Sunday afternoon after K100,000 (NZ$46,000) had been paid.

Prime Minister James Marape announced before his trip to Central Africa earlier this week that the K100,00 had been paid.

Made available by third parties
However, Internal Security Minister Peter Tsiamalili Jr clarified that the money was made available by third parties to assist with intelligence gathering and to support the negotiators, who secured the release of the hostages.

“In the course of these briefings, it was agreed that the state could not be the party to negotiate a financial settlement, as it recognised the risk of setting a precedent,” he said.

“It is important that members of the public understand the sensitive nature of what occurred in what was an act of terrorism and that the government was not directly involved with the negotiations.

“Negotiations were deliberately undertaken by third parties, through an agreed operational strategy, so as to not compromise the state’s position on law enforcement.”

Meanwhile, 16 of the kidnappers have been identified and their pictures have been provided to police.

Marape said that phase one of the process was completed and a combined PNG Defence Force (PNGDF) and police investigations would continue.

‘No stone left unturned’
“No stone will be left unturned, all those involved will be arrested and charged accordingly and will face the full force of the law,” he said.

Tsiamalili added that security forces would continue to work to bring those involved in the kidnapping case to justice.

“The full weight of the law will be brought to bear on the captors,” he said.

“The actions of the hostage takers were abhorrent, causing significant distress to the captives and their families.

“We will not tolerate those who seek to take the law into their own hands, and all necessary resources will be deployed to ensure that those responsible face the full weight of the law and are held to account.”

Rebecca Kuku is a reporter with The National. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It was at the end of a long day of walking back and forth over the dusty roads of Goroka town in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea that I first met Evelyn.

I’d spent the morning interviewing three inmates in the regional penitentiary, Bihute Prison, about their participation in the murder of three people who they believed had killed a relative.

That afternoon I interviewed a policeman and a government official about the increasing impact of sanguma — sorcery violence — on the people of the region.

Everyone I talked with agreed that sanguma was a serious issue. I ended each interview by asking the men, what can be done to quell the violence and halt the spread of this growing problem.

Not one of them was able to provide an answer. “The problem was simply too big” and “there are no resources to help”, they said. As I climbed into the back of a rust-filled Econovan, the wife of one of the officials who had lingered in the background during the last interview, rushed to hand me a piece of paper.

She handed over the torn note, saying: “You must find her.”

The note contained the hastily written name “Evelyn Kunda” and a phone number. By the time I climbed out of the Econovan, back in the centre of Goroka, I’d made contact and walked directly to the Catholic mission.

There I found Evelyn Kunda. She looked like many other women in Goroka, dressed in a Meri blouse –- a Mother Hubbard style dress. Her hair was deep back and densely curled.

Warmth and intelligence
She looked to be in her early 50s but life in the Highlands towns and villages can make it hard to tell. What struck me the most about her appearance was the warmth of her smile and the intelligence in her eyes.

I didn’t know why the official’s wife had to told me to find her, I struggled to find a place to start. I told Evelyn, that I was researching sanguma in the Highlands, and asked what she might know.

WILDFIRE from Paul Wolffram on Vimeo.

Kunda explained that she, along with other volunteers of the Catholic Church, worked to hide, rehabilitate, and eventually — where possible — relocate the survivors of sorcery accusation-related violence (SARV).

As trucks expelled oily exhaust fumes, pushing dust down the road behind us, she described how difficult and dangerous the work had become for her and other volunteers in Goroka.

“In one instance we were looking after a woman whose husband had beaten her. He wanted to kill her. I took her to my house. Then her husband wanted to kill us as well,” Kunda said.

For a time, the Catholic church provided Kunda with a house in their compound but that soon became problematic, and the women were asked to leave. Now Kunda runs an unofficial safe house hidden among the shanties on the outskirts of the town.

‘They’re traumatised’
Kunda does her best to provide for them, but she explains: “They often can’t talk with us, they find it very difficult to talk about what has happened, they’re traumatised”.

She provides them with a place to sleep, food from her tiny garden, and whatever she can afford from the markets and trade stores.

At the end of our interview, I posed the same question to Evelyn Kunda that I’d asked the officials earlier that day.

“What can we do to stop sorcery violence?” Kunda’s response was immediate and practical, “We do all we can with whatever we have. Solutions can’t be found by sitting on our hands.”

Her work is proof that she’s a woman of action.

The following year, in 2019, I visited Evelyn Kunda’s safe house. A small two-room dirt floored hut that she’d built with offcuts of timber, bush materials, and sheets of old corrugated iron.

At the time she had two women living with her. One had escaped a violent partner and the other had been beaten as an accused witch. Kunda is desperate for support.

Working on a film
We began working together on a film, with the aim of showing the extent of the impact of sanguma in the Highlands. I also wanted to show the world the incredible work Kunda is doing to resist the violence, rescue survivors, and educate others against gender and sorcery-based violence.

I was to return to Goroka in 2020 to complete the filming and to bring Evelyn Kunda back to New Zealand to work with us on the post-production but, like so many other plans, co covid-19 interrupted them.

The last two years have been more difficult than usual in the dusty frontier towns in the Highlands. As covid-19 swept through communities in Papua New Guinea and the morgue at Goroka hospital filled to overflowing, the amount of sorcery accusation-related violence rose too.

Local researcher Fiona Hukula said that there was a lack of clear communication about covid-19 available in PNG and significant amounts of disinformation. The National newspaper reported about a 45-year old woman and her daughter who were accused of sorcery and tortured by their relatives after her husband died of covid-19 in April last year.

Emma Dawson, Caritas Australia’s Pacific manager, described increasing domestic violence reports and sorcery accusation-related violence in July last year.

The violence occurs when a community blames a death or illness on sorcery. They identify a local man or woman as a witch and torture and kill them in shocking scenes of mob violence.

Earlier in 2021 a young boy died suddenly in the Highlands province of Hela. Within a few days a woman’s body was left by the side of the road. She’d been lynched and killed by her own community.

No cultural background
Ruth Kissam who works for a local NGO, the Tribal Foundation, told the ABC that violence like this didn’t have a cultural background, even in areas where belief in sorcery was traditional.

“Sorcery accusation-related violence picked up about 10 to 15 years ago. Culturally, there is a deep belief in sorcery in many parts of PNG but it was never violent.” Kissam said that this was a law-and-order problem.

Back in Goroka there were other instances where people were known to have died from covid-19 but the community and family refused to accept the diagnosis and in one case a woman was burnt with hot irons and thrown from a bridge. She survived, but her daughter and other family members were also targeted.

For Evelyn Kunda at the grasruts, running a safe house in a community where her presence and work are not always supported by landowners, life has become even more tenuous. Over the last two years I’ve maintained constant contact with her. At one time she had eight adults and children living in her tiny house.

Last week, Kunda was accosted by a group of women who beat her because of the work she does with the community’s most vulnerable.

Evelyn Kunda has no government support; she is not linked with any national or international NGO or aid organisation. She volunteers for this work out of compassion. Despite these difficulties, she is making a real difference to the lives of the women, men and children she houses and supports.

How long she will be able to continue this work is unknown.

Dr Paul Wolffram is a film maker and associate professor in the Film Programme at Te Herenga Waka. He has been working with communities in Papua New Guinea for more than 20 years.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As families prepare to celebrate Christmas with their loved ones, a safe house in Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby has kicked out gender-based violence survivors, leaving them homeless for the festive season.

One of the survivors, 37-year-old Gathy Peter from the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, told the PNG Post-Courier that they were informed by staff from the safe house (named) that the house would be closed for holidays.

“So for those of us who have no family here in Port Moresby, they just left us at the Boroko police station and I have been here as I have nowhere to go,” she said.

“Another woman, who had her two children with her, was also left here but she has since left the station premises.”

Peter is a mother of three, she met her husband (named) when he went to Bougainville for the crisis and they got married, and in 1997 they moved to her husband’s hometown in Southern Highlands province.

“We had three kids, one boy and two girls, but life was not good, my husband was violent, so after four years, in 2012, I took my two daughters and ran away back to Bougainville, leaving behind my son who was just nine years old at that time.”

She said that in 2017, she came to Port Moresby for work but her husband found her and forced her to move in with him again, so she moved in with him at Gereka.

Badly beaten by husband
“But the violence continued, he would tell me to remove my clothes before he started beating me, he even brought home his girlfriend to live with us, telling me that she was his niece,” Peter said.

In June this year, Peter was badly beaten by her husband, who cut her with a machete from her head down to her feet.

“He kicked me in the face when I cried out in pain — when I spat the blood out, three of my teeth fell out too.

“A neighbour came in and stopped him, and I took the opportunity to run away, and walked from Gereka to 6-Mile at around 11pm in the night.

“I passed out somewhere near 6-Mile in front of a small tucker shop.

“A woman from there assisted me to the Gordon police station to file an official report with the FSVU (Family and Sexual Violence Unit), and I was put into a safe house (named).”

With no family and friends in Port Moresby, she was left homeless but was assisted by the Boroko Juvenile Unit to win her case against her husband, who has since been sentenced to two years in prison.

In safe house for six months
Peter has been living in that safe house for more than six months but was dumped at the Boroko police station car park area.

She is living at the precinct of the Boroko police station. She is far from home and family.

“Christmas is near and I long for my children and the white sandy beaches of my home.”

Attempts made to get comments from the safe house were unsuccessful yesterday.

However, according to the sources — women who were given refuge at the safe house were all sent back to their families as the safehouse was closing for the festive season.

Only Gathy Peter and the mother of two were dropped off at Boroko Police Station as they do not have families in Port Moresby.

However, the mother of two has since been given refuge at another safe house, leaving Peter behind.

Rebecca Kuku and Marjorie Finkeo are PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz